


seven summers.

by LIGHTSJOON



Category: ONF (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Anyways, Boys In Love, Day At The Beach, Established Relationship, I really cried writing this, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, M/M, Pls dont hurt me, True Love, capturing a moment in time, hyoj, hyoseung, i'm so sorry yall, if seungjun says his name is spelled with a u its spelled with a u, im sorry again, okay but this story isnt that good im sorry, shes short but impactful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:06:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27572797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LIGHTSJOON/pseuds/LIGHTSJOON
Summary: "does it ever make you sad to know that was seven summers ago?";hyojin looking back to seven summers ago.
Relationships: Kim Hyojin & Lee Seungjun | J-Us, Kim Hyojin/Lee Seungjun | J-Us
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ugh yall, im so sorry, shes an angsty one. enjoy.

_ Sometimes I wish I could go back. Not to change anything, but to feel a few things twice. _

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

If there were anything Seungjun hated more than the color white, it was the beach. He couldn’t stand the endless chill that would constantly creep its way up the column of his spine, or the way the rough sand managed to follow him the dozen of miles to home, leaving him with a mess to clean up for weeks on end. Yet, he could seek forgiveness from the universe as long as it meant that he got to see Hyojin smile like  _ that. _

Serving as his opposite in more ways than one, Hyojin savored every given moment whenever they had the chance to make it out to the coast, which wasn’t often. Frankly, vacation days didn’t come easily to Hyojin, who was only a mere novice intern at a humble publishing firm. He was the last choice for absolutely everything that appeared to make working there beneficial, but was also always the first to be called on for tasks that weren’t. It was a day like today, a day where Hyojin didn’t have to worry about anything but his happiness, that made the mundane hours of the work week absolutely worth it. 

Hyojin’s smile reached his eyes. It always did. The hint of those all too familiar wrinkles at the corners of his eyes was so pure and gentle, it was enough to bring a subtle smile to Seungjun’s lips. 

“Seungjun!!” Hyojin waved his hands back and forth haphazardly from the shoreline, which was not terribly far from where he sat in the sand where they’d planted their belongings, but still a considerable enough distance away that Hyojin’s voice strained against the wind. “Seungjun come put your feet in the water!”

And as much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t. He was content with watching from afar, watching his best friend and the love of his relatively short life enjoy the trivial things in life. So, instead of standing to meet Hyojin at the shoreline, he shook his head with a smile on his face, tugging the quilt his mother had made long ago closer to his body. 

He could hear Hyojin giggle from a distance as he abandoned the crystal water and jogged sloppily across the sand until he was just at the foot of the picnic blanket. 

“You don’t want to play in the water?”

Seungjun shook his head again, watching as Hyojin dusted his feet off with one of the various towels they’d brought along with them—lord knew they needed them—before plopping down next to the brunette. 

Hyojin leaned in, placing a soft but sincere kiss just at the corner of Seungjun’s mouth, and there was no mistaking the growing smile on the elder’s lips as he lingered there. When he pulled away, a frown stumbled upon his face. “You’re freezing.” 

“You’re surprised?” 

“Not really,” Hyojin reached for an extra blanket, unfolding it until it was resting across both of their laps. “But it’s also not that difficult to use a blanket.” 

Seungjun scoffed, a feigned look of appall stretching across his features. “How dare you insult my mother’s quilt like this.”

“It’s a quilt, Seungjun,” Hyojin rolled his eyes. “It does absolutely nothing to keep you warm in a place like this.” 

He knew Hyojin was right, but he would never admit that to him. Instead, he took a deep breath of the rich salty air, and rested his head against Hyojin’s shoulder. 

“You okay?” Hyojin wondered aloud. Seungjun had grown to wonder if Hyojin actually meant to ask or if it was merely meant to remain unspoken. He knew what he was asking, knew what he meant, but he never acknowledged it, no matter how many times he asked. 

Seungjun sighed, pushing his face deeper into Hyojin’s neck, “I’m tired.” 

The latter nodded in understanding, merely responding by wrapping his arm around the younger and lowering them onto the blanket they shared. “Rest for a while, we can go home then.” 

The brunette took another deep breath, savoring Hyojin’s natural scent, which was some combination of bar soap and the shampoo they’d grown to share. Both were incredibly cheap, and there was something about it that filled Seungjun with resentment as a young adult, but now he couldn’t make it through the day, couldn’t sleep at night, without the comfort of that scent. 

Seungjun willed his eyes to open, just for a moment, as he pressed his lips against his favorite auburn haired man. When he pulled away, he closed his eyes, mumbling a drawn out  _ I love you _ against the sensitive skin of Hyojin’s neck. 

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

It wasn’t entirely dark when Hyojin woke from the intoxicating lure of sleep he’d shamelessly fallen prey to. The sky was a deep amethyst, mixed with the residual golden tones of the quickly fading golden hour. It was simply stunning, a landscape painted across the sky for them to witness together. 

He slipped out of Seungjun’s grip easily as Hyojin forced himself to sit up, forced himself to meet the gaze of that cool toned sky. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before; the sunsets were never this beautiful in the city. 

Hyojin twisted to where Seungjun still lay, still deep in some dreamscape he’d never be able to break into. That was one thing about Seungjun that Hyojin loved the most, that despite the nightmares that chased his lover through a hell entirely its own, it was the peaceful way in which he maintained himself in sleep night after night. 

The elder sighed, bringing his hand to the soft but wind-bitten skin of Seungjun’s cheek, “The things I wouldn’t do to chase this nightmare away…”

Hyojin brushed away a strand or two of Seungjun’s hair that had fallen out of place. He didn’t want to wake him, but he knew that they had to start packing away their things soon in order to make it back to the city before it got too late in the evening. 

He leaned in close, placing his hand on Seungjun’s shoulder, and gently shook him. “Seungjun. Hey, Seungjun, I know you’re tired but we need to start getting our things together.”

And it wasn’t until then that he began to pick out the abnormalities of the scene before him. Sometime between the time they’d fallen asleep and now, the quilt that had draped around Seungjun’s shoulders had been sloughed off, whether it be by the wind or the tossing and turning of their bodies as they dozed. Not only that, but the way he slipped away from Seungjun far too easily for it to be normal. 

And no matter how many times Hyojin looked back on this moment and the events of their day, from the time they woke up until the moment he realized Seungjun had peacefully passed on, he couldn’t help but blame himself for not realizing it sooner. He’d known Seungjun was sick, truly,  _ very  _ sick, had known for a while that he didn’t have much time left. 

All he wanted was to make Seungjun feel like he was living a normal life, not one constantly interrupted by dreadful and looming doctors appointments, nerve inducing scans, and the results that would come with them at the end of it all. He wanted Seungjun to be free, to feel the very same freedom that they had felt as children. 

But, perhaps Seungjun had never been free. His deepest nightmare followed him like an everlasting rain cloud that was reserved especially for him. 

Seeing Seungjun sleep peacefully on the beach that day would forever be a painful reminder that sometimes the nightmares win, that even the wildest dreamers are unable to recognize that nightmares are also dreams. And that even though the darkness had won, he’d been a dreamer until the very end. 


	2. after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wjc begged me to post this. so this one is for them.

There was nothing but a faint recollection of falling asleep, as if Seungjun had only gone down for a nap, and he'd been fully expecting Hyojin to be right beside him whenever he woke. Yet, there was nothing. Absolutely no one.

Nothing but the beach. The chill of the winter wind creeping up between his shoulder blades. The sound of the waves crashing against the gritty sand.

"Hyojin?" Seungjun pushed himself up from the blanket they'd spread out earlier that day.

He quickly scanned the beach for  _ any _ sign of life, but it were as if he'd been abandoned by humanity itself.

Seungjun chuckled anxiously. "Hyojin. This isn't funny."

He waited several long breaths before a familiar sense of panic began to claim him. And before the darkness could sweep him up like the waves at the shoreline, he stood with his mother's quilt wrapped around his shoulders.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

He brought his hand to his chest, and that subtle movement alone was all the confirmation he needed.

He was to be completely and utterly alone in this world.

"Hyojin...I'm so sorry." Seungjun sobbed. "Wherever you are, wherever I am...I'm  _ sorry." _

—

This is how he spent each and every day for who knows how long.

Time didn't flow in the same manner as it does when you're alive, he was merely stuck living in the same moment of his death over and over again. The sky remained that stunning plum, violet color of the sunset, the sand was still exerting the warmth it'd captured from the sun, the wind still managed to reveal the goosebumps that had covered his sickly pale skin.

And despite all of the beauty that nature had to offer, there was no disguising the heartache that lingered deep in his chest.

Both he and Hyojin had known from the very beginning that his days were limited, far more so than most other terminally ill patients. And he'd known better than anyone that Hyojin was only trying to give him the best for the time they had together. He'd spent so much time nearly working himself to death trying to do just that, and as much as Seungjun appreciated the grand gestures—the trips, the priceless gifts and meals—he wanted nothing more than to just spend time with the person he loved the most. He could care less about the money, couldn't even begin to be bothered by the gifts that Hyojin had worked so hard to procure. He would have much rather spent that time on the couch, watching movies until they could no longer keep their eyes open; or cooking acrid tasting home cooked meals, despite the fact that most of it would have been burnt either way.

It was those memories he wanted to cherish, wanted  _ something _ to hold onto.

He didn't want to remember who they were, what they were, and the time they'd committed to one another by simply remembering all of the times they  _ hadn't _ been together. Because the matter of the fact was that they'd spent most of their relationship admiring each other at a distance, congratulating each other on promotions they never celebrated together, sending each other birthday messages from their offices. It was a fiery, burning love that was fueled simply by their desire to be together, no matter where they may be in the world, as long as they were together then that's all that mattered.

And it wasn't until now, now that death had finally come to claim him for its own selfish greed, that Seungjun had realized he'd never truly been okay with any of it. He thought that his patience would have been enough to get them through, that his genuine, undiluted love for another human being was commendable...but it wasn't. His still, unbeating heart cried with disappointment, agonized with an anger he'd been repressing for as long as he could remember.

They had tried their best. To live normally. To love deeply.  _ Tragically,  _ evidently.

Seungjun's eyes settled on the sunset as they always did, because amongst everything that seemed to be unchanging, completely unphased by time and space, that dazzling melancholy sunset yielded. There was always something new to discover, some new shape, something about his past, his feelings, that would shed some light on the truth to his life that he'd been completely ignorant to.

Sometimes he wished that he could remain ignorant to it all.

But there was not much else to be left with in death. Those thoughts, the past, the feelings he'd once felt, it's all he had to keep him company amidst the crushing loneliness. This was a whole other sort of loneliness, not like the one he felt when Hyojin had been away. Now it was one of realization that Hyojin wouldn't be coming back, that  _ he _ couldn't go back.

All there was left to do was to wait. Waiting, desperately and agonizingly, until Hyojin could return to him.

—

"Hyojin..."

Hyojin had just come home from the cemetery, he remembered falling asleep much more quickly than usual, and he wasn't sure if this were a dream or a nightmare disguised much like it, but he was taken back.

Taken back to that day. To the beach.

The sunset.

To Seungjun's lifeless body lying next to him.

"H—Hyojin." Seungjun's eyes welled up with tears, and the younger sobbed, wrapping his arms around the elder's torso with all of his might. "You're here. You're finally here.  _ Oh my god. _ I thought I would never get to see you again."

Hyojin could feel a tear streaking down his face, tears that he'd been holding back for ages, for nearly a lifetime.

He was here. Seungjun was here, right in front of him. Not the same dreamesque version of Seungjun that he was familiar with, but he was  _ really  _ here. And yet, words evaded him.

There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things that he'd been storing deep in his heart for decades. They'd come so easily to him once, and now...it was like he were swallowing pins and needles.

"Me too, Jun..." Hyojin let out a young breath. "Me too." 

And it was in that moment that Hyojin finally believed that there was a god. Perhaps not the god that you may be familiar with, but someone,  _ something _ that had been listening to his endless prayers. His desperate cries for help, for forgiveness, and redemption.

So, he let himself sob, would let himself become vulnerable in front of Seungjun for a lifetime if he must.

"I love you..." Hyojin cried. " _ I love you." _

**Author's Note:**

> IM SORRY 
> 
> FOLLOW ME ON TWT @/LIGHTSJ00N
> 
> LEAVE A COMMENT ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [astroboy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574550) by [teddygirl105](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddygirl105/pseuds/teddygirl105)
  * [youth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28710348) by [teddygirl105](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddygirl105/pseuds/teddygirl105)




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